Parents Seek Veto Over Year-Round Schools : Petition drive leader warns of ‘hell to pay’ if the board tries to block the initiative.

A group led by San Fernando Valley parents has launched a petition drive to place an initiative on the June city election ballot that would make conversion to year-round schools more difficult.

And, in a warning to school board members, the group’s leader, Dan Shapiro, Tuesday threatened that parents would vote out of office any board members who try to block the initiative.

“There would be political hell to pay. It would effectively be the last vote they make on the board,” said Shapiro, chairman of “Parents to Save Neighborhood Schools.”

The petition, which requires 70,000 valid signatures by Dec. 22 to qualify for the ballot, asks that an amendment be added to the City Charter that would prohibit creation of any more year-round schools without the approval of 60% of the parents of children who attend the school. The 93 schools currently operating on a year-round schedule could return to a traditional September-June calendar if 60% of the parents approve of the change.

The petition measure would also require the district to reduce crowded conditions by reopening closed schools, adding portable classrooms to campuses of less crowded schools, instituting voluntary busing and constructing new schools in overcrowded areas.

“These are not Draconian changes,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro said in a telephone interview that the group knows the school board must approve placement of a proposed charter initiative on the June municipal ballot. The board is on record in support of a gradual phase-in of year-round schools as one way to find classroom space for its fast-growing student population.

Shapiro’s tough words to the school board came the day after it embraced recommendations to delay placing additional schools on a year-round calendar. Parents who organized to oppose added year-round schools hailed the recommendation, which the board is likely to formally approve next week.

But board members cautioned that the year delay was only a way to buy time so that faculty and parents could prepare themselves for the inevitable conversion to a year-round schedule. To reinforce the idea that districtwide year-round school will become a reality, district staff recommended that the board announce in January a list of schools that will start on year-round schedules on July 1, 1988.

Year-round schools increase their capacity by dividing students into several groups, with at least one of those groups on vacation at any given time. By making more schools year-round, the district hopes to accommodate the enrollment of 635,000 expected by 1990.

To help with the petition drive, the parents’ group has hired Jackie Brainard, a former aide to Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco). Brainard was a spokeswoman for Developers Equities of Beverly Hills, the firm that is converting the La Reina movie theater in Studio City into a retail and restaurant complex. She also headed the petition drive for Proposition U, the so-called slow-growth initiative, that was approved by voters last month.

School district officials said they are aware of the initiative movement, but will wait to take any actions until it is clear that petition organizers have gathered enough signatures to qualify.

“There are some serious impediments in front of the organizers,” said Associate Supt. Jerry Halverson, who acts as the board’s attorney.

Even if the parents’ group gathers enough signatures to get the initiative on the ballot, Halverson said there are still several other hurdles before it is actually placed on the ballot.

Because the school district piggybacks its election on Los Angeles municipal elections, the City Council and the school board both would have to approve placement of the measure on the June ballot.

Applies Only to City of Los Angeles

Another obstacle the petitioners would have to overcome is that the initiative would affect only those schools within the City of Los Angeles, Halverson said. But the district includes several independent cities and unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. According to Halverson, a Los Angeles Charter amendment cannot be enforced in jurisdictions outside of the city.

Finally, Halverson said, the initiative may be unconstitutional because the district is mandated by the state to educate all children seeking public education within its boundaries. By 1988, without year-round schools, a major change in state funding or the opening of schools in overcrowded areas, the district could not educate a substantial part of its student population and would be in violation of the state Constitution, he said.